Author: Sanjay

I often look at my life as a guy watching it play on screen, while he eats popcorns. Also, I am forever trying to make the best of my time as an organism on mothership earth. I enjoy reading, watching films, listening to music, and spending time taking walks with wife, family, friends and mostly with myself. I work as a Management Consultant, and enjoy all the learning that comes with it. I believe science and art must go together, and strive to do things and projects that truly inspire me.

After I get back from work in the night, I check my email sporadically till I crash. I realize I do this only to ensure I am not missing out on some urgency that may have reared its ugly head. However, I feel a certain degree of anxiety every time I do so.

One Saturday evening, when I was chilling with a dear friend, I ended up checking my email and voila – I had an urgent query from a senior. I apologized to my friend for what I was about to do next – dug myself in my phone to send a cogent reply to my senior ( a tedious task when you’re three large pegs of Glenlivet down ).

When I got done, my friend commented – “dude, cannot believe you have work email set up on your phone.” Aghast, I questioned what was wrong with that, and commented that it was abnormal NOT to have office email set up on phone. Therein followed a healthy debate for 30 minutes on what was right – to have office email set up on phone or not.

On reflecting, my takeaways were :

– there is not much to be gained by checking email, especially if you are already clocking 12 hours at work … If any urgency arises, people can always call you

– a lot of it is expectation setting. If over time, you set expectation that you need to be called in case of emergencies instead of email, people will come around and reach you on your phone

– while it is tough to leave work at work, it can be learned over time. Trick is to practice the habit of walking away from email

So I’ve now begun my journey of not checking email once I leave office. Let’s see how far I succeed

What’s been remarkable though, is how inspite of him insulting the media and even calling them “scum”, the media cannot seem to get enough of him. American media is behaving much like insecure people, who tend to gravitate towards those who abuse them. He’s spending the least on PR and getting the most coverage. To me, the reasons seem to be :

– he says outrageous, sensational things that grab eyeballs

– a lot of people actually buy his shit, thinking he’s the chosen one who will truly make America great again. Little reminiscent of Modi’s “Acche Din” campaign that was a huge hit in India

I see three dangerous factors collaborating to fuel Trump’s rise :

– the human preference for optimism and flash over the trite but substantial

– people being naive enough to believe Trump’s promises, who’s a master at media and people manipulation

– Crappy competition – Hillary who? An Elon Musk against Trump would be a viable option, not Hillary!

It will be a tragedy if Trump is able to sustain the momentum and win the Presidency. He’s too self obsessed to do things that are right for either America, or other countries. He’s too trigger happy – given his proclivity to shoot from the hip even when ignorant eg his comment to “close internet down”.

Hope American people see the light and elect somebody saner, who can continue to at least support status quo if not improve it. Trump will just make things worse.

The last two months, I’ve been redoing some things I’ve done before. All these things I’m doing are thought out, and stuff that’s beneficial for me.

I have learned a few important things in the process :

– past success in an activity does NOT guarantee you will succeed at it again. Not true for hobbies and habits – everyone can ride a cycle after decades of not doing it after a few attempts. But in stuff where let’s say you compete, any outcome is possible. Remembering this helps keep one humble and pushes one to do the homework

– learn to accept failure and rejection. If we succeeded at everything, would success hold any value? Success is not an entitlement.. It’s a pursuit. Some simple things to do are :

*first, accept that you have failed. That you tried, and it still didn’t happen

*tell yourself what you’ll do different the next time

*write that in a personal electronic journal, and tag it as “failure”

*you can search for it next time you are about to attempt something new, or after a long time.

Although I diligently pay for my Tata Sky connection every month, I make it a point to never watch any TV. The only times TV and I come face-to-face is :

Late weekend nights when I cannot sleep. Those nights are rare

When I wish to play podcasts or some Youtube videos using ChromeCast – happens on weekends when I run home errands, because I need a distraction when doing laundry and dishes

When some family turns up to stay with Mansi and me, and we end up watching TV before crashing for the night. This is one of those nights

Every time I watch TV, I am filled with complete contempt and disgust for the prime-time content people are hooked to. It’s not that good content on TV is not possible – sometimes, life gives you the occasional Breaking Bad, or the Wire. Then why is most stuff on TV downright stupid, vulgar, and intellectually offensive?

Then, on thinking about it, it makes sense. Most watch TV to escape life, escape their worries. Good cinema makes you think, and connects you to your feelings. Cable TV exists to serve as anesthesia, people wish for anesthesia. Hence, trashier is better I believe.

I just got off the train, after having completed a week-long trip to Andhra Pradesh, where our company is now expanding. Yesterday, I interviewed some engineering graduates for our implementation team. After the interviews, the placement officer asked me to speak to junior college students regarding career counseling.

I wanted to keep the discussion conversational, more so because I had nothing particularly enlightening to share. I asked twenty students what they wanted to do after college. Answers ranged from software engineer to army officer. I focused the discussion on core attributes that are needed no matter what career choice one makes – leadership, comfort with failure, developing analytical skills, and constantly learning and reading.

After the session, two students walked up to me and said their biggest concern was they did not know what they were passionate about. They said a previous career counseling session conducted by a paid career counselor focused on how one should do what one is passionate about.

But there’s a problem here. Indian colleges, including the best, provide no avenue for students to explore their passions or strengths. Moreover, passion is also a function of effort – when you invest energy in an activity and start seeing success in it, passion usually follows.

It will be a much more fruitful conversation to help students explore their strengths, and present to them career choices that leverage some, if not all, of those strengths. Correct expectations also need to be set – like everything else in life, career also needs figuring out through a combination of effort, patience, and experimentation. For e.g. Someone who finds no joy in learning about object oriented programming can suddenly not become a prodigal android developer. Someone with an outgoing personality may be a much better fit in sales or support, but these career choices are not even discussed on campuses.

Placement officers and colleges need to get their attention realigned to educating students on what’s out there in the market, rather than just obsessing on placement numbers and philosophical conversations around passion. Unless we do so, industry will continue to see an influx of ill prepared and demotivated workers.

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Who am I?

I often look at my life as a guy watching it play on screen, while he eats popcorns. Also, I am forever trying to make the best of my time as an organism on mothership earth. I enjoy reading, watching films, listening to music, and spending time taking walks with wife, family, friends and mostly with myself. I work as a Management Consultant, and enjoy all the learning that comes with it. I believe science and art must go together, and strive to do things and projects that truly inspire me.